THE TROPICA!. AGRICULTURIST. 
[July i, 1881. 
THE PROSPECTS OF INDIAN TEA. 
The days are passed when tea planters hoped to 
mate a fortune in a few years. There are mainly 
two reasons for this. Firstly, the prices of tea have 
fallen greatly, in many cases 30 and 40 per cent. This 
is due to the fact that supply, in the case of Indian 
tea, has overtaken demand. Still, there is some com- 
fort to all interested in the industry to be derived 
from the low prices which have ruled during the last 
two years. So cheap have Indian teas been that the 
attention of the trade has thereby been directed to 
them, and consequently the deliveries of the last few 
months have exceeded any known previously. It is 
calculated by those best able to judge, that if the 
present rale of deliveries in London continues, the 
stock in June next will not exceed 12 million pounds, 
and the truth is, strange as it may appear, that 
below this point it is not well that the stock in 
hand should fall, because, if it does, dealers will not be 
able to meet their requirements, and will then perforce 
buy more China. There is another point which should 
give comfort and hope to the Indian planter, in spite of 
the fact that we are heavily handicapped in our race 
with China inasmuch as owing to more expensive labour 
our cost of production must exceed theirs. This source 
of hope is the great point now generally admitted, 
that Indian tea is better and goes further than China 
Tea. The experience of each of us can quote instances 
of individuals dropping China tea and taking to India ; 
who knows of any one doing the reverse ? We admit 
the taste for Indian tea is more or less an acquired one. 
Still, the public at home have already been educated 
to the taste by the yearly increasing proportion of 
Indian mixed with China tea. Speaking generally 
(though the exceptions are many and increase yearly), 
it is true that Indian tea is not obtainable pure, but 
no more is China. The bulk of the tea now sold to the 
public in the United Kingdom is a mixture, three 
parts China and one Indian, and all points to the 
fact that in a few more years the general mixture will 
be half-and-half. 
We are thus surely paving the way, in other words, 
teaching the English public, to like Indian tea, and 
the broad fact that, once used, it is never abandoned 
for its rival, is surely a very hopeful feature. The 
truth is that were it possible to make the population 
of England, Australia and America drink Indian tea 
for one week only, the demand after that week would 
be enormous, and we should hear no more of 
" supply exceeding demand ; " nay more, many thou- 
sands of acres would at once be added to the present 
cultivation in India. 
But we have somewhat wandered from the question 
we set out with, viz., 'why tea does not pay now as 
it once did. The first reason we have given ; the 
second is that there is now no market for tea seeds. 
This last reason is little dwelt on, but it is a very 
important factor. The clays were when E300 per 
month, and even more, was paid for tea-seed, and 
though this did not last long the price for many 
years up to 1878, was about R100. Now it is simply 
unsaleable. The receipts for tea-seed, during all these 
years, formed a large part of mature garden earnings, 
and, to quote one instance, thereto in a great measure 
were due the big dividends paid by the Assam Com- 
pany. 
But though tea prices may. and we think will, 
improve, it is not likely we shall ever again see the 
rates obtainable formerly. This being so, it is prob- 
able that only those plantations in the future will 
pay that produce tea cheaply. How is this to be 
done ? Those gardens that are heavily weighted hy 
unsuitable climates, by a bad class of plant, by slopes 
which are too steep, by inordinately expensive la- 
bour, or other causes, will have a hard time of it, 
but plantations with natural advantages need in no 
way despair ; though, as we said above, we cannot, 
in the matter of cheap labour, vie with China, we 
have a great advantage over the Flowery land as 
regards economy of production in another respect. 
We allude to the use of machinery, which does much 
now, and will do more and more as each year passes, 
to reduce the cost of production. Machinery in the 
manufacture of tea is, we believe, almost unknown 
in China. There each and every operation is per- 
formed by hand ; here in India, many now do, and 
eventually all will, wither, roll, fire and sort by the 
help of machines. It says not a little for the enter- 
prise and the inventive genius of the Anglo-Saxon 
race that, while in China the manufacture of tea dates 
back many centuries, and yet all the tea is still made 
by hand, we in India, who have only planted tea 
some 40 years, have invented machines and use them 
to-day for each and every operation in manufacture. 
It is but as yesterday that we imported Chinamen 
to teach us the modun operandi. We now know far 
more than they do on the subject, and, verily the 
pupil has beaten his master. 
Though machinery reduces the cost of production, 
and in more than one case improves the quality of 
tea, and planters know it, the difficulty before them 
to-day is to know which is the best machine for each 
operation. Unanimity on this point is not to be expected 
yet. One swears by Jackson, another by Kinmond, 
others by Ansell, Barry, Lyle, the inventor of the 
Sirrocco, and so on. The machines and names of 
inventors are many, and each has its disciples. Perhaps 
the most favourite rolling machines are Jackson's and 
Kinmond's. But we see the latter has just produced 
what he calls a " Centrifugal Rolling Machine " which 
he thinks will supersede all others. We have not 
seen it, though it is at work on several gardens, and 
so can give no opinion about it ; but another of 
Kinmond's machines, his Dryer, we know well. It 
was long a moot point if tea could be efficiently fired 
by any othtr agent than charcoal. Many affirmed 
that the fumes of charcoal were necessary, and when, 
years ago, Colonel Money, so well known by his 
writings in tea matters, affirmed from experiments 
that charcoal was not necessary, but thay any fuel 
would do the work, few believed him, for people said 
it was impossible to credit that the Chinese would 
have gone on using charcoal (so much more expensive 
than other fuel) for centuries, were it not a neces- 
sity. What Colonel Money then predicted has al- 
ready come to pass. Much of the tea now produced in 
India never sees charcoal at all, and it is very certain 
that in two or three years all Indian tea will be 
fired by machinery. We say this is certain, simply, 
because, apart from the saving effected by using other 
fuel, the value of teas fired by machinery is increased. 
It is natural it should be so, because by the use of 
the best machines invented for that purpose, the 
heat can be regulated to a nicety, an impossibility 
by the old mode of charcoal firing, 
Kinmond's Dryer is, in our opinion, the best tea- 
dryer machine yet invented. Space forbids our des- 
cribing it minutely (besides only those, and they are 
few, who understand tea machinery would appreciate 
our description), but its general features we will 
shortly touch on. In the comparatively small space 
it occupies in a factory, and in the large quantity 
of work it does in a given time, we think it unri- 
valled. This last feature doeB away with the necessity 
of night-work, which, apart from other drawbacks, 
is prejudicial to the excellence of tea, because, among 
other reasons, its color cannot then he appreciated 
in its several stages. Tea made at night is never 
very good. With sufficient motive power, sufficient 
rolling machinery, and Kinmond's dryers, the factory, 
let the leaf gathered be what it may, can be shut I 
